HAHA...I feel satisfied with revenge.

Sitting in a theatre. Not knowing what is going on in front of you. Hearing things that are odd and foreign. Having to read jokes, poorly translated.

I'm describing two things. The first was the American response to Chinese Opera. The second is the Chinese response to Hairspray, which I saw tonight. The parallels between what they must have been going through and what we sat through a couple of weeks ago.

Now, keep in mind, and I'm not necessarily proud of this, but this is my third time seeing Hairspray on stage. I know it well. I know where the jokes should hit, where the big laughs and reactions should be and where. And, to be honest, most of the time, I, along with the three Aussies who i went with, were the only people laughing. It was funny, because I felt like I needed to laugh harder to compensate for the lack of reaction from everyone else.

And, this is not to say that the Chinese didn't love it. They were on their feet nanoseconds after the show ended. Plus, during the intermission, two people came out and taught the audience a dance, which then everyone did with the cast after the show. I had never seen anything like that before.

They reacted totally to the music more than they did the script. They also loved the visual gags and the really broad stuff going on. Even though I feel a little better knowing that they were probably confused for a big chunk of the evening, I know for a fact they enjoyed Hairspray exponentially more than we enjoyed The Marriage of the Moth and the Monkey or whatever that piece of junk was called.